Ijeoma Nkem Egeneonu v Levi Bernard Egeneonu
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr David Williams QC |
| Judgment Date | 19 September 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 2336 (Fam) |
| Docket Number | Case No: FD13P02234 |
| Court | Family Division |
| Date | 19 September 2017 |
[2017] EWHC 2336 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr David Williams QC
Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge
Case No: FD13P02234
Hassan Khan and Charlotte Baker (instructed by Bindmans) for the Applicant Mother
Edward Flood (instructed by Duncan Lewis) for the Respondent Father
Hearing dates:11,12 and 19 September 2017
This is my judgment in the application by Ijeoma Nkem Egeneonu for the committal to prison of her ex-husband Levi Bernard Egeneonu (also known as Bernard Nkem). Ms Egeneonu alleges that Mr Egeneonu is in contempt of court. I shall set out the allegations later in this judgment.
All of the allegations of contempt are linked to and are a product of the retention of the parties' children in Nigeria in autumn 2013 following which they were made wards of court on 22 November 2013. The children (who remain wards of court to this day) are:
— Chidera Ogemdi Egeneonu (M) (26.4.2002)
— Odinakachi Arinzechukwu Egeneonu (M) (11.3.2005)
— Ifeanyichukwu Munachimso Egeneonu (M) (11.6.2007)
On 30 January 2014 Ms Justice Russell delivered a judgment after a contested hearing. She concluded that the children remained habitually resident in England and Wales as at the time wardship proceedings commenced and that the court therefore had jurisdiction to make the children wards of court and to make orders concerning them. As no final order has been made on the wardship application and as the children remain wards of court this court retains jurisdiction over them to this day. As I shall return to later the question of whether this Court or the courts of Nigeria have jurisdiction over the children is a legal fact which has played a significant role in how the case has evolved.
The Applicant is their Mother who is represented by Hassan Khan and Charlotte Baker (instructed by Bindmans). The Respondent is their Father who is represented by Edward Flood (instructed by Duncan Lewis) I shall refer throughout this judgment to the parties respectively as the Mother and the Father. Counsel and solicitors for both parties are specialists in international child law and I have been greatly assisted by that expertise in the way the case has been prepared and conducted in court.
In accordance with the Lord Chief Justice's Practice Direction of 26 March 2015: Committal for Contempt of Court – Open Court this hearing has taken place in open court. The press have attended parts of the hearing and have applied for the release of the parties Skeleton Arguments/Position Statements.
There is a substantive hearing on the wardship application listed for 25th September. I have not been provided with all the information about the substantive matters and have not sought to delve into it too far given the possible risks of prejudicing the position of the Father by hearing about facts or matters which don't truly relate to the committal issue before me. Inevitably there is some cross-over because one of the central issues within the Committal application is whether the Father has been honest about the current whereabouts of the children and his ability to make plans for and implement their return if that was what the court was to order. However it is NOT a live issue within these Committal proceedings whether the Father is currently in breach of an order to actually return the children to this jurisdiction.
This is the second application that has been made for the Father's committal to prison. On 6th March 2015 the Father was found guilty of 9 counts of contempt of court. They are set out in the order of 8th May 2015 as amended under the slip rule on 8 March 2017 by Mr Justice MacDonald [B-C89–94]. I do not need to set them out in full but they covered:
a) Obtaining travel documents to enable him to leave the UK,
b) Leaving the UK and travelling to Nigeria,
c) Breaching a non-molestation undertaking in March 2014 by phoning the mother and saying he would never return the children from Nigeria and putting pressure on the mother to withdraw her wardship application by making threats to her and her family,
d) Failing to produce the children and to return them to the UK by 14 February 2014,
e) Failing to book tickets to effect the return of the children,
f) Failing to attend hearings on the 5th, 14th and 20th March 2014.
On 8th May 2015 the Father was sentenced to a total period of 1 years imprisonment by Mr Justice Roderick Newton. However because the Father had left the jurisdiction on or about 6 February 2014 and remained in Nigeria the sentence of imprisonment was not implemented immediately. Between May 2015 and early 2017 the wardship proceedings continued and on 18 January 2017 the President delivered a judgment on the Mother's application for Declaratory Relief. Although the father had not attended any court hearings relating to that application or the wardship including the committal, between January 2014 and January 2017 he had engaged with the court process by filing documents and I believe by instructing solicitors.
The sentence of imprisonment imposed by Mr Justice Roderick Newton was eventually activated when the Father was arrested under the Committal Warrant on 26 March 2017 he having returned to the UK in late February or early March 2017. The Father will be released from that sentence on 26 September 2017 pursuant to s.258 Criminal Justice Act 2003, he having served one-half of the sentence.
This Committal Application
The application to commit the Respondent father was issued on 4 th August 2017. It sets out 13 Grounds. [A—B9–15]. It was supported by the 3 rd Affidavit of the Mother which included 38 exhibits running to a few hundred pages. That now comprises Bundle B. A copy of the Application, Affidavit, Exhibits and a draft order made on 29 June 2017 was served personally on the Father on 7 August 2017 by a process server. An Affidavit of Service is at [A-D32] Directions were given by Roberts J on 8 th August and the application was listed before MacDonald J on 30 th August with a 2 day time estimate. On 22 August 2017 the Father signed a statement which referred to a number of other documents. That statement along with other statements and documents (including a number of letters from the children) and amounting to a couple of hundred pages now comprise Bundle C.
On the 30 th August the hearing was adjourned because:
a) the father had recently dispensed with the services of his solicitors [see letter at C-C1133] and legal aid was only transferred to his new solicitors that day, and
b) the father had complained of being unwell [See F's letter to the court written at the RCJ at [A-D36–37] although when examined by a medical officer he was said to be fit to come into court and to participate in the hearing and thereafter did so. [See Recital A—B18, para 9].
The matter was listed before me on 11 September for 2 days. For reasons which I haven't explored counsel for the Father had not received full instructions from the Father and I allowed Mr Flood until about noon on Day 1 to see the Father to ensure that he was fully instructed. Having had that opportunity Mr Flood was able to confirm that the Father sought to rely on the statement of 22 August 2017 and the other statements referred to therein and did not wish to file a further statement. At that stage Mr Flood indicated that the father would wish to give evidence.
As referred to above the Committal Application contains 13 Grounds in respect of which the Father's committal to prison is sought. I indicated to Mr Khan at the outset of the hearing that I considered the range and duplication of allegations contained within the Committal Application together with various procedural defects might present practical and forensic difficulties to the just determination of the application and that a more precise focus on those allegations which were not affected by technical procedural barriers and which properly reflected the nature of the wrong-doing alleged might be appropriate.
As a result of re-consideration of the basis of the Grounds both prior to the commencement of this hearing and subsequently, not all of the Grounds are pursued. I consider that to be sensible and appropriate. Mr Flood, not surprisingly, had no objection to them not being pursued and that course of action has simplified the legal and evidential landscape to some degree. As I do not consider it fair to leave them unadjudicated (or on the file) and thus technically capable of resurrection I propose to dismiss those Grounds which are not pursued.
Set out below is a Table of the Grounds together with the details of whether they are pursued or not. Given that each of the parties have referred to the allegations by number I do not intend to change the numbering notwithstanding the fact that only 8 of the original 13 allegations are live.
| Ground No | Nature | Status |
| 1 | Continuing failure to return of children in breach of order to return them by 14 Feb 2014. | Not pursued as order required return by set date and F committed for non-compliance with that. No further order was made requiring return, |
| 2 | Father has brought about important and major steps in the children's lives in the knowledge that they are wards of the court and without the prior consent of the court. In particular
[It is alleged these are in breach of the prohibition inherent in wardship that no significant step may be taken without the permission of the court.] | Pursued |
| 3 | Breach of non-molestation... |
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Levi Nkem Egeneonu v Ijeoma Egeneonu
...on 30 August 2017 by MacDonald J ( [2017] EWHC (Fam) 2451) and heard on 11–12 and 19 September 2017 by Mr David Williams QC: [2017] EWHC (Fam) 2336. He committed Mr Egeneonu to prison for a further period of 15 months. The charges proved related to: a) Harassment of the mother. b) Failure......
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...The standard of proof is the criminal standard ( Cambra v Jones [2014] EWHC 2264 (Fam), Munby P)). 32 In Egeneonu v Egeneonu [2017] EWHC 2336 (Fam), at §21(b) David Williams QC (as he then was) sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court, gave some helpful guidance. I am not going to read......
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